Symantec’s Microsoft suit

Symantec filed suit against Microsoft today, alleging that Windows Vista includes technology misappropriated from Veritas, which Symantec acquired last year. Microsoft says it’s acting properly under the terms of its licensing agreement with Veritas. See this story for more details. Here’s a copy of the complaint: PDF.

Read on for the respective statements from the companies.

Statement from Symantec:

The complaint was filed in federal court in Seattle, WA, and involves Symantec’s Volume Manager product – a solution Symantec acquired from its merger with Veritas. Volume Manager allows operating systems to store and manipulate very large amounts of data. It helps to overcome some fundamental limitations in storage hardware and also protects systems from costly data loss by allowing systems to recreate data when storage hardware fails.

The complaint states that Microsoft gained access to the misappropriated technology by licensing Volume Management technology from Veritas, and then violated the clear terms of the license agreement by using that technology to develop competing features and products. The complaint also states that Microsoft improperly incorporated that technology into its operating system products, including Vista.

Finally, the complaint alleges that Microsoft concealed its misappropriation by denying Symantec access to Microsoft’s source code – access that Microsoft was required to provide under the agreement.

Microsoft also filed patents based on certain Veritas trade secrets even before launching the joint Microsoft/Veritas product developed under the license agreement, wrongfully claiming to have invented product features and ideas that were provided to Microsoft by Veritas, and improperly disclosing confidential information provided to Microsoft in the process.

The lawsuit aims to stop Microsoft’s misappropriation and misuse of Symantec’s intellectual property, and seeks the removal of all such intellectual property from Microsoft operating system products. It also seeks proper compensation for the harm Microsoft has caused to Symantec.

Statement from Microsoft:

Today’s filing stems from a very narrow disagreement over the terms of a 1996 contract with Veritas to license volume management technology. We worked hard to try to resolve these issues with Symantec, but were not able to reach an agreement. We believe the facts will show that Microsoft’s actions were proper and are fully consistent with the contract between Veritas and Microsoft.

These claims are unfounded because Microsoft actually purchased intellectual property rights for all relevant technologies from Veritas in 2004.

Microsoft first entered into a contract with Veritas in 1996 to license volume management technology. The contract ultimately gave Microsoft the option to buyout the rights to Veritas’ code and intellectual property rights. In 2004, Microsoft exercised that right and purchased the IP rights. Even so, we have gone to great lengths ensure that our volume management functionality continues to works side by side with Veritas’ products.

We value our relationship with Symantec, and we continue to work closely with them on a wide variety of issues. We are confident that our actions are wholly consistent with the legal agreements between Veritas and Microsoft, and that these claims will be shown to be without merit.